Currently, during a process of starting a server, a basic input/output system (BIOS) module controls a graphics card to output a signal to a display to start the display, only when an operating system (OS) is about to start up. Before this, the display is always in a black screen state. Therefore, after the server is powered on and before the display is started, a user has to wait for a long time to visually obtain presentation information from the display.
With an increase in a quantity of central processing units (CPUs) in the server, a time from a moment when the server is powered on to a moment when the display is started becomes longer. For example, when the server includes eight CPUs and a memory that has 192 dual in-line memory modules (DIMM), the time from the moment when the server is powered on to the moment when the display is started is about 25 to 30 minutes. During a process from the moment when the server is powered on to the moment when the display is started, there is not any valid startup information on the display, and the time may be up to 30 minutes. During the period, the user can only passively wait for a long time for the display to start. If the server encounters a startup exception, a server administrator cannot be notified in a timely manner. The server administrator can obtain startup exception information only using a baseboard management controller (BMC) management interface, or checks whether the server encounters an exception by means of checking for a startup timeout, and then re-starts the server. As such, currently, there is a disadvantage that initialization progress of hardware in the server cannot be presented.
To overcome the disadvantage that the initialization progress of the hardware in the server cannot be presented, currently, a method for presenting the initialization progress of the hardware in the server is proposed. In this solution, after the server is powered on, the BIOS module controls the graphics card to output a signal to the display in order to start the display in advance, instead of starting the display when the OS is about to start up. Therefore, presentation information of a running process of the BIOS module is presented on the display.
In the foregoing solution, the BIOS module specifies a memory address in an initial running phase to start the display in advance by means of directly writing data to the memory address. However, before a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) expansion card is initialized, writing startup data of the BIOS module to the memory address needs to be stopped. Otherwise, an address conflict is caused, and as a result, initialization of the PCIE expansion card fails, and implementation of the BIOS module is suspended. Therefore, in the foregoing solution, although the display can be started in advance, not an entire running phase of the BIOS module is covered. That is, the display cannot always present the initialization progress of the hardware in the server in the entire running phase of the BIOS module. Therefore, there is a disadvantage that the display cannot always present related information of the initialization progress of the hardware in the server in the entire running phase of the BIOS module.